My gf doesn't believe atheists should come out. Need help

My gf and I had this pretty spirited debate over dinner two nights ago about my atheism. She seems to be increasingly concerned with me (she's catholic) as our relationship grows. I worry that my atheism will grow between us. Or to say, her problem with my atheism.

She brings up atheism more than me and gets increasingly angry as we discuss, while I stay level-headed. The subject of this discussion was "Why are Atheists so noisy?"

I tried to compare our out campaigns with gay right, black rights, women's right all of those things, which to me are pretty comparable, but she's black and got kind of offended when I compared our trials and tribulations with that of african american struggles. I changed it up and only compared it to homosexualtiy and women's rights.

She then countered that we don't need to come out because we can't change anything, there's too few of us. I told her that we are trying to get a wider following, trying to encourage freethinkers to come out.

She then asked something that kind of hurt, she said "Why do you need to come out? Just live your lives like everyone else and be happy with it. You don't need to be so loud about your atheism and cause problems for yourself."

I was at a loss for words. I wanted to express that it's not fair to need to hide, it's important to live our lives but she honestly doens't see a point to our cause.

I'm wondering what you guys might have said in my shoes, or why you personally think our cause is a noble one? I still believe it is but I am curious about what we are hoping to accomplish. I wish I was much more active in the atheist movement. all I seem to do is retweet and come on this website. How could I get more involved?

Replies to This Discussion

I don't think there is anything that you can say or do to convince your girlfriend that Atheism is a noble cause. She is basically telling you to shut up about it and that she does not want to hear about it anymore. Here is your revealing statement, and you even recognized the hurtful nature of what she said:

'She then asked something that kind of hurt, she said "Why do you need to come out? Just live your lives like everyone else and be happy with it. You don't need to be so loud about your atheism and cause problems for yourself.'

She is more concerned about herself, and about how dating an atheist will make her look to her family and peers than she is about you. She really meant that you were going to cause problems for her; I see very little concern for you in her actual words. She was just clever enough to disguise her statement as concern for you and all the 'problems' that atheism may or may not cause for you. I meant, honestly, what problems does atheism cause? Atheism is like a lack of problems, at least religious ones. Religion causes all kinds of problems for its followers: guilt, powerlessness over ones own life, many many wasted hours worshiping absolutely nothing, war, child molestation, genocide, etc, etc, etc, etc... I see that someone has suggested you watch the 'Why are you atheists so angry' video and I highly recommend you do that! Have your girlfriend watch it with you and see what she has to say about all the crazy BS that religion has caused since, well, the dawn of all time. LOL.

If she really cared about you, she would respect your beleifs as you do hers - you must respect them, however minutely, just to be in a relationship with her - and, I'm sorry, telling you to shut up about it is not respect. You should probably evaluate what you want out of this relationship and where you want it to go. If you were ever to have kids with her, it will probably be a deal breaker when it comes to how you will raise your children.

I wish you all the best! I hope you can work something out. I know that relationships take a lot of time and energy to build and maintain and I always hate to see someone struggling like this.

Hhhhmmm, I've been there couple times. And, previously I always choose to end those hectic relationships. Because of it, I've got a kind of "traumatic" sense. The consequence is: I've been single during this 2 years.

Currently, I've a crush on a theistic woman (again). She's moslem, but thx God she's not wearing the headscarf. But she still pray 5 times a day, fasting during fasting month, etc 3x. So, I'm not sure whether I will step toward more serious relationship or not.

Based on my previous experiences: If I tell them the real me, that's gonna be problems. Even if she's a liberal progressive theistic person, that's still gonna be problems. Probably she won't react immediately, particularly when she's still in a heavenly love madness state. But later: She will.

Because of it, now I'm considering for not telling her about my godless. I'll pretend that I'm a nice prefect theistic person. I know, that probably sounds so naive to all of you. But, I've been there many many times and it's not with the same person. And my clock is thicking. So, I guess, now it's time for me trying to be a "wiser" person.

Keith, my opinion on your case is: If you still have time, just get another person. But if you don't, just try to make a deal with it.We must thx to God for creating us as atheist people. That's a priceless gift from him. Anyway, since english in not my native, hopefully anybody here can understand my english.

I'd never even consider pretending to be theistic, it'd end up causing far too much of a headache. The way I see it is; if they can't accept you for who you are, then they are not the right person for you.

I know that sounds like a line from some crappy chick flick but lets face it, it's actually quite a good way to look at things.

admittedly I do live in a pretty relaxed country when it comes to religion, though I do have some experience in what I preach; when I was younger...and dumber, I once got into a long term relationship with a girl who was VERY anti-smoking...I smoke like a chimney and tried to hide it from her for 3 months.

Yeah, god and theism aside, you cannot base a relationship on a lie of ANY kind. If you pretend to believe in god just to please someone else, you are eventually going to be found out and the whole thing will explode on your face. You will most lilkely lose the relationship because you lied to the other person, not because you don't believe in god.

Not to mention, how can you be in a relationship with a person that you cannot be yourself around? You are only going to be able to pull that off for so long before you can't take it anymore, and you should have more respect for yourself than that!